Ahead of the show’s final on RTÉ Two next Tuesday (June 5) John Byrne takes a daily, season-by-season look back on Desperate Housewives and some of Wisteria Lane’s guest stars over the course of its eight glorious years.
SEVEN days to go . . .
SEASON ONE
Mary Alice Young: she started season one with a bang
In the fictional American suburb of Fairview, on a street called Wisteria Lane, the suicide of Desperate Housewives’ narrator Mary Alice Young was the event that set the whole series in motion and had viewers immediately hooked. She was a seemingly perfect housewife who, fearing the exposure of a dark family secret, took her own life. At her funeral, Mary Alice's four close friends and the show’s main characters - Bree, Lynette, Susan and Gabrielle - are introduced.
Elsewhere that season: Andrew Van de Kamp runs over Carlos Solis’ mother Juanita, moments after she photographed Gabrielle cheating on Carlos. Paul Young strangles Martha Huber for her involvement in his wife's suicide. Rex Van de Kamp dies of a heart attack in the season finale.
Where have I seen that face before?
Sharon Lawrence as Maisy Gibbons
Maisy Gibbons is a married mother who scandalised the neighbourhood by selling herself to various men around the Fairview neighbourhood, including Bree’s husband Rex Van De Kamp. Maisy first appears in episode six, in charge of the arrangements for the Little Red Riding Hood Play at Barcliff Academy. Four episodes later it emerges that she’s a local prostitute who sleeps with Rex Van De Kamp. The scandal seems to lead to Rex’s death.
Sharon Lawrence is probably best known for her award-wining role as Sylvia Costas, the attorney who marries Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz) in classic cop show NYPD Blue. More recently she was nomimated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Izzie Stevens' mother in Grey's Anatomy.
John Byrne
